On Sun, Jan 11, 2004 at 08:00:36AM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> Renaming packages would work but causes a lot of work, build-failures
> and broken packages. So, we asked, why do we have to rename packages
> in the first place?
Because a policy of "no two packages with the same name will be installed
simulataneously; dependencies on a package can be resolved by looking
at nothing but the name and version" is very simple, useful and effective.
> Package: libc6 (1)
> Architecture: i386
> ABI: strict
> Version: 3.2.3
>
> Package: libc6 (2)
> Architecture: i686
> ABI: strict
> Version: 3.2.3
>
> Package: libc6 (4)
> Architecture: amd64
> ABI: strict
> Version: 3.2.3
>
> Only one of 1, 2 or 3 can be installed and 3 is the prefered one
> (highest version). But 4 can be installed alone or in combination with
> any one of 1, 2 or 3.
This proposal means you can't look at Packages files alone to work out
the meaning of dependencies, in the above you have to also know that
"i686" is a subarch, and "amd64" is distinct from "i386", but compatible.
> Ideas, complains, objections?
Yes; renaming the packages is a _good_ thing; breaking the "one installed
package, one name" rule is really bad. What does "dpkg -L libc6" do on
an amd64 system, eg? You're also breaking /var/lib/dpkg/info/<pkg>.*,
you're breaking the /usr/share/doc/<pkg>/copyright standard, you're
breaking every assumption we've ever made that's based on that rule.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we can.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004